Home Cinema Choice. January
2006. Deleted Scenes Column
The Shawshank Redemption is a strange film.
A quite enjoyable one in my opinion, but while it didn't win any
Oscars, I have heard many people, not least HCC TV guru John Archer,
claim it as the best film they have ever seen. I've heard just
as many others say they fail to understand what all the fuss is
about. Like it or loathe it, the movie is in the news again, and
the reason it's in the news could be bad news for the collectivists
among you.
Think of a movie that you like a lot. You probably have it on
VHS. Somewhere. You will certainly have it on DVD. Maybe on laser
disc. Perhaps on Video CD, Maybe even on JVC's D-Theatre high-definition
videotape format. But I bet you haven't got it on a ROK Chip.
'Of course not', I hear you say. I think I also heard you say:
'What on earth are you talking about anyway?'
Bear with me if you would. The ROK Chip is the latest movie format
to hit the High Streets, courtesy of technology company ROK. The
company was formed in 2002 and has spent the last three and a
half years developing its technology. That technology compresses
audio and video content so that a 2-hour movie can fit on to a
standard 64MB MMC (MultiMediaCard) that can play back in one of
around a dozen Nokia phones. According to ROK marketing director
Bruce Renny, this means the ROK chip will play in around half
of all the handsets currently sold in the UK, turning it into
a portable DVD player in effect, but with a smaller screen and
smaller media. By the time you read this, the ROK Chip will also
play back in a lot of the PDAs sold in the UK.
The content ranges from music video collections to Coronation
St. highlights and episodes of popular TV series, including The
Office and Red Dwarf. The Shawshank Redemption is currently the
only movie available on a ROK chip, though the company has struck
a deal with Paramount to release a dozen of its movies on the
ROK Chip format in 2006. Each ROK Chip sells for £17.99,
and by the end of 2005, they were available from around 300 stores
in the UK, including branches of The Link and Nokia stores, as
well as online at www.rokplayer.com
By February 2006, ROK aims to have distribution in 1,000 stores
across the UK.
And if you think £17.99 sounds a bit steep for something
you might not watch that often, a DVD-style online movie club
will launch in the second half of 2006. This will charge a flat
fee for an 'all you can eat' hire service.
Renny admits that when he licensed Shawshank, he, in his own words
'did not expect any sales'. It was done more as an experiment
to see if anyone would watch a full-length movie on a small screen.
'But what we found was that the Shawshank ROK Chip was being bought
by people who were fans of the movie and who had to have it on
this new format' says Renny. 'From what we have seen with Shawshank,
we have a pretty good idea that in terms of films, it's cult movies
that are going to work best on the ROK chip.'
So there you have it folks. If you thought you had Star Wars,
Star Trek and every other collectable movie or TV franchise on
every format going, it looks like you might have to think again.
For the moment, the ROK Chip only comes on an MMC card, but Renny
says the type of memory card is irrelevant. '
'We can put it on SD, anything' he says, 'but we don't want to
create confusion at this early stage.'
Similarly, while the company can see the value in distributing
the ROK chips through movie outlets like Virgin or HMV stores,
Renny says it's too early to try to do so at this stage, as consumers
would not know what they were being presented with.
One concept it does plan to launch later this year, <IE 2006>
however, is an instore download kiosk, where customers could insert
a blank MMC, download and pay for the content they want, then
take it away. Once they had watched it a few times, they might
choose to delete the content and download something else, or keep
it and buy a new card to download something else on to.
The company is also keen on bringing down the price of the ROK
Chip.
'It would be great to be able to offer a 64MB card with some comedy
or maybe 10 music videos on there, plus 40MB of free space, that
retailed for less than the cost of a blank 32MB card' says Renny.
'That's what we're looking at.'
Looks like it might be time for those of us who don't have a Nokia
phone to think about upgrading